Whenever I am at home I usually turn my laptop into an instant CPU. I connect a monitor to it as well as a wireless keyboard and mouse combo. My reasons are simple — I don’t need to torture my eyes and give myself carpal tunnel syndrome when I am at home. If I can make things easier for myself then, of course, I’ll take advantage of it.

If you also do the same things like I do then the Dell SP2008WFP will be a good monitor for your needs. It’s a 20 inch flat panel monitor that is meant to be used for gaming, multimedia and and for communications. The nifty thing about this Dell monitor is the integration of a 2 megapixel webcam to the unit. No more awkwarly propped up webcams with this baby. It also makes your desk look less cluttered. It also has a built in microphone for easier video conferencing. The great thing about this webcam is that Dell has made it fully functional. It comes with a Dell Webcam software suite that allows you to do a number of functions with your webcam.

The monitor has a wonderful pixel response time of just 2 ms. This means that it can easily handle the demands of high end gaming. It has an HDCP compliant DVI connector that also allows you to view high definition content that is protected.

I’m going to list down this Dell monitor in my wishlist to Santa.

Say what you will about Sony and the Playstation 3 — high prices, delays in top tier titles, the snafu with the rumble feature — at least the company releases products that have a measure of quality that assures customers. Look at the rushed release of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and the immediate complaints about its powercords, overheating issues and the dreaded ring of death. Playstation 3 may have been left at the gate but from the initial reviews of the unit, it was relatively quiet (compared to the 360’s industrial level drone) and overheating issues were very few, if at all apparent.

Microsoft seems to have built a reputation for always coming out with rushed products. You just need to look at all of their software, which are technically working betas than final releases, the aforementioned Xbox 360, and now Halo 3. I have yet to hear about glitches on the software itself but, predictably, complaints are being posted on the internet about the game case scratching disks.  I’m not wholely blaming Microsoft for this fiasco because they surely have contracted a third party to manufacture the cases but shouldn’t these things also be tested? In fairness to Microsoft, they have acted quickly about this complaint, not like their very slow acknowledgement of the ring of death issue.

I know I’m going to get a lot of hate mail from Xbox fanboys for this one…

One of the biggest aces up the sleeve of Sony in terms of the current console wars is the release of their much touted 3D Home online service for the Playstation 3. This new feature will allow players to create their very own characters and content. Anticipation for Home has been high especially since it was reported that it is going to be launched this fall.

But, predictably, Sony announced at the Tokyo Game Show 2007 that it is delaying the release of Home until next year. The company, through Sony Computer Entertainment  (SCE) Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai, said the reason for the delay was to further improve the service’s product quality. Hirai said that since the service will have to offer a number of different functionalities in many regions in the world and they want to launch it at a level where they can meet the high expectations of people.

Another disappointment was the failure of Sony to give price cuts for the PS3. The biggest gripe about the console is its high price and consumers were hoping that a price drop would be inevitable. Instead, Hirai said that they will be strengthening their title lineup to attract more customers.

As an eventual PS3 buyer, I am hoping that Sony will be able to get its act together soon in order to really attract customers. I hope I won’t get disappointed.

As seminal computer games go, Doom is probably one of the grand daddies of the gaming industry. It’s right up there with Pong, Pacman and the first Command and Conquer as seminal games that defined gaming. Of course, the success and popularity of Doom meant that iD Software, the creators of the game, became an overnight icon. There is now a certain level of prestige attached to any game made by iD and the expectations for any game coming from the company is just insane.

It was, therefore, quite understandable for both fanboys and gamers to go crazy over iD Software’s recent unveiling of its newest game, Rage. The game revolves around the premise of fighting a corrupt government in a post apocalyptic setting. Rage is expected to be a multi platform release, with Windows, Mac, Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. The game will be using an all new graphics engine and this alone will set excitement levels to stratospheric levels because iD games are best known for the high quality of its graphics.

There are still no announced release dates for Rage, which also highlighted another of iD’s well established characteristics, the reputation for long development cycles and a penchant to break scheduled release dates. I hope that this would be the one game where they will not announce any delays.

Being a married adult has its perks. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. But there’s one major downside…not enough time for video games!

Well, I decided to take action two weekends ago and bought 2 games from Best Buy. One, was Empire Earth 2 and the other was Defcon. Empire Earth 2 is your standard RTS game, only it’s chock-full and loaded with features, going from prehistoric times up to a time of futuristic weaponry.

I had played Empire Earth 1, so I knew what to expect from Empire Earth 2. It’s a fun game. But you know what, it’s the other game I bought, called Defcon, that I find myself addicted to.

The premise behind Defcon is that you are immersed in an approaching all-out, world-wide nuclear war. The music is eery. Combined with the premise of mass destruction, and a goal of killing as many people as possible from the enemy territories, I’ve got to admit that I felt a bit of unease in playing this game. It almost seems a little inhuman.

But I’m hooked.

The game itself is simple and elegant. It’s real time strategy, but there’s no resource collection. You basically have 5 stages of Defcon starting out at 5 and moving down to 1. In each of the 4 earliest stages you basically prepare for Defcon 1 where all out chaos emerges.

When each game starts you position your radars, nuclear silos, airfields, and navy fleets. Nuclear silos double as air and anti-missile defense but can only serve one function at a time. I usually start the game out leaving most of them in anti-missile defense mode until I’ve had the chance to use all my bombers to knock out the opponents silos.

Airfields have both fighters and bombers. Fighters have a very limited radius, but are mainly to protect the homeland. Bombers have something like a 1/2 -2/3 of the globe radius of movement. And silos can basically hit any location on earth.

Submarines are very important units in that you can sneak them up to your opponents shore and then launch quick and dirty nuke attacks. They also let you discover weak spots in the enemies defense.

Carriers are like roaming airfields. They have bombers and fighters. Battleships are good for defending subs and carriers or attacking the other teams subs and carriers.

At the end of the day, the game is all about mass destruction and the goal is to wipe out whole cities. Like I said, this has a bone chilling effect, but the suspense and the sheer adrenaline rush that you get are immeasurable.  Watching a nuclear war unfold….well it’s crazy.

From the very beginning of Defcon 5, the suspense starts building and doesn’t relent. There’s no toying around with resource building or waiting for the right moment to attack. The game forces you into nuclear war, and it’s this aspect along with the perfect simplicity of the game, that make it so intriguing. Just like a game of chess, the rules are simple, but the variety of games and strategies are huge. And because of its simplicity, anyone can jump in and play right away.

I’d give this game a 9/10 review and say its a must have for any fan of war games.